ELIZABETH (1850)
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
(Logic and common usage so commanding)
In thy own book that first thy [name9 be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing
Besides my innate love of contradiction;
Each poet - if a poet - in pursuing
The muses thro' their bowers of Truth or Fiction,
Has studied very little of his part,
Read nothing, written less - in short's a fool
Endued with neither soul, nor sense, nor art,
Being ignorant of one important rule,
Employed in even the theses of the school-
Called - I forget the heathenish Greek name
(Called anything, its meaning is the same)
"Always write first things uppermost in the heart."